Breaking the Ice

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Breaking the Ice

“I was looking for people pulling ice out of the frozen Songhua River, and I walked for about five miles alone on the river before I spotted this team working the ice,” says Your Shot contributor Wesley Thomas Wong, who has been working on a project about ice workers in Harbin, China, for four years.

“I made several trips to various ice festival sites under construction in and around Harbin. I wanted to find out where these guys were getting these huge blocks of ice for construction material, and I learned that all of it came from one place—the river.”

This photo was submitted to Your Shot. Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

Knowing nothing about ice breaking, but indeed knowing about how much I like photography,are different things. Well I do like this one of men at work, that must be very hard on them.With those tools that look and are dangerous, I do not envy them this job. Outstanding shot. j.e.s.

We in the US actually use something like that in construction to pound in concrete stakes and steel fence. You get a steel pipe 1/2 to 1 inch larger than object to be pounded in cut to length that is comfortable for you, thread the end, weld on handles and put a cap on it. Look at the first person his has a cap on it. All you would have to do is thread the bottom and add another device. There not as heavy as a sledgehammer and no misses.

Its always a blessing to learn something new about other countries. I have lived in the snow in North Dakota but here in SA our lives are a lot more "sunny". Great photo... "but they had better mind their toes because those tools look real sharp".

@heather levingstone Woo Hoo.....Nope I was staying alone in my in-laws home by myself all Christmas while I was up there shooting. No T.V., No people...just me and my cameras.......pretty sad huh.....

@William Henry Hey thanks William, yeah I'm sure they probably got the idea to do this from construction workers seeing as how most of these guys are construction workers themselves, but I appreciate your info cause most of the time I just take the photos and never really delve into specifics...

@Rajesh Pathak Rajesh.....actually the photo information they had up there was incomplete. The ice is actually first broken by huge saws they drag across the ice. The big spikes there using are only used to break the ice apart.......

@Denis C. Wow Denis, thanks for the informative comment....I always wonder whether this huge saw is something unique to China or whether it's used in other places. There's actually another shot on my gallery somewhere where you can actually see the thing more clearly.......but thanks much for you comment again.....